Local Newspapers on the Way Out?

Interestingly enough, last year while at university I enjoyed a talk by the ex-business editor of the Yorkshire Evening Post. He was explaining in depth how the traditional print newspapers may soon be on the way out. At first I was outraged – why would we never want to pay an interest in the news but the more he explained the more it made sense. While sitting at our desks – if we are seen to have an open paper in front of us we are deemed to be wasting time where as if we are looking at our computer screens, searching through Facebook for all our employers know, we are seen to be working. Now, more and more people are receiving their news from the internet – google homepage, the newspapers own websites with far more interactive material. That was a year a go.

Now, I am the first to admit that I gain most of my newsworthy knowledge not only from newspapers own websites but from sources such as twitter and RSS feeds too. I very rarely buy a paper copy of the paper in the week any more simply collecting news items throughout the day electronically.

I was shocked and saddened by the recent announcements of redundancies at Archant’s offices in Norfolk who publish the Eastern Daily Press(EDP) and the Evening News not just because of the obvious negative impact on the people involved but because this is my local paper. Was the editor mentioned previously above right? Is print fading away and fast?

A group was set up on Facebook by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) regarding the amount of redundancies originally announced. On the 16th March Archant retracted their statement and reduced the redundancies by 20 people all due to the support raised from the group. The power of the latest media trend really does fill me with hope. Not only has it got so much power behind it but it was used to support an industry supposedly it is replacing which brings me on to my final point? Is there not enough room for both mediums?

I joke with my mum how the major headline on the local paper never reflects what is happening in the outside world, in the BBC News it will be ‘Interest rates drop to 1.5%’ where as the local paper will lead with ‘Dolly the sheep found live and well’ but all joking aside does it need to? it does fulfil a purpose, It delivers local news to local people. I am the first to believe that this recession will end businesses which should probably end anyway (I am awaiting a barrage of abuse as I write) allowing other businesses to get stronger -a business law of nature if you will but in this case I have to say...Long live the local paper!

Media Guardian has published an interesting podcast involving discussion around the death of local media., to listen to it please click here

To twitter or not to twitter that is the question...

Recently I have been trying to get to grips with the latest social media trend – twitter. Twitter is a status update social media tool allowing you to discuss/announce your latest feed using only 140 characters or less. With a rise in citizen journalism this will be the perfect tool for people to get an idea of an event as it happens from the people closest too it – allowing a range of angles to be covered from the corporate level right down to the innocent bystander.

I am still getting to grips with the modern technology myself but some people have taken it a step further. Drew Benvie, board director at Hotwire PR based in London one of the most active pr agencies on twitter according to PRWeek in February, has started a social media experiment this week by searching on twitter instead of Google for answers. Drew explains that his experiment started when he was looking for a place to eat Sunday lunch near to his home – Google provided too many results where as twitter was more refined and the responses were more personal.

Stephen Waddington, Managing Director of Rainerpr is also interested in the progress of this research and been blogging about his progress.

The experiment mentioned above though is one of many uses twitter claims to have. A friend of mine was able to obtain a BBC interview with a client via twitter after seeing what the journalist was writing about from his status update.

Although I am still learning about the values and technicalities of twitter I am open to the value it may bring to the media industry but what about the mere mortals of the world – will it bring value to their lives also?

For more information on the benefits of twitter Drew has a good ten step guide.

If anyone has any tips for twitter or simply a dummies guide please send it along – I am due to host another social media session for my colleagues in the next couple of weeks so any other aspects regarding twitter you feel I need to cover then please do let me know!

PR More Powerful than advertising

A recent study has announced results that PR is more powerful and financially rewarding than advertising.

The article published in PRWeek announced that 'The Media Prominence Study, conducted by Text 100 research arm Context Analytics, found that in industries that involve more research before purchases are made, such as computing, PR can account for nearly half of brand value.'

This is a statement that I have argued against my peers (admittedly alot of them advertising and marketing based) but would the results have more clout if the study wasn't conducted by a PR agency in the first place.

'Our findings reinforce that PR and communications are important and cost-effective tools that deliver real business value - often at fractions of the cost of advertising,' said Text 100 CEO Aedhmar Hynes.

I can't help but think this wasn't a wise move considering PR is all about presenting an honest and un-biased image.